Author: Zargarian Hambik

VII GOLDEN APRICOT INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL TO TAKE PLACE IN YEREVAN ON JULY 11-18

ArmInfo
2010-04-13 16:14:00

ArmInfo. VII Golden Apricot International Film Festival will take
place in Yerevan on July 11-18.

The organizing committee of the festival told ArmInfo correspondent
that in 2010 around 200 applications have been submitted from various
countries of the world. Traditionally the contest program will consist
of 3 sections: "Fiction Films", "Documentary Films" and "Armenian
Panorama". In addition, a regional forum "Directors Without Borders"
will be held within the frames of the festival for the fourth time.

Master classes with participation of the leading film directors will
also be held during the festival.

ARMENIAN OMBUDSMAN: THE PROCESS OF CUSTOMS CLEARANCE OF GALA TV COMPANY’S NEW EQUIPMENT IS BEING ARTIFICIALLY DELAYED

ArmInfo
2010-04-13 18:00:00

ArmInfo. The process of customs clearance of the new equipment of
GALA, TV company owned by ChAP LLC, is being artificially delayed
even though the company has met all of its documentary obligations,
says the statement addressed by Armenian Ombudsman Armen Haroutyunyan
to Chairman of State Income Committee Gagik Khachatryan.

The statement says that, in response to the request of ChAP Director
K.Karapetyan, the Head of Shirak Territorial Customs Office said
that the process was suspended on the basis of a report by Gyumri
Territorial Tax Inspection.

The Ombudsman wants to know what law the Shirak Territorial Customs
Office was based on when passing the decision. "If there is no such
law, you should take measures to restore the rights of the company
and should inform me of the results," says the Ombudsman.

Armenian mass media say that the possible reason for such treatment
might be the events of 2007 when GALA broadcasted one of the speeches
of then presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrossyan. After that the
company faced tax avoidance charges. Director of GALA Vahan Khachatryan
says that these charges have political implication. GALA is in very
tense relations with the Municipality of Gyumri.

PROVISIONS OF ARMENIAN DEFENSE ESTABLISHMENT DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT TO BE ELABORATED

news.am
April 13 2010
Armenia

The issues on drafting of the defense industry development
concept and military-industrial complex as well as assistance to
military-industrial facilities were discussed at the meeting of the
interdepartmental commission, chaired by RA National Security Council
Secretary Arthur Baghdasaryan.

He stressed the necessity to intensify ties between military industrial
facilities in Armenia and post Soviet states, that will induce increase
of defense capacity and provide RA Armed forces with the necessary
equipment, RA NSC Press Service informed NEWS.am.

According to the participants, the development of military-industrial
complex will tackle many social issues as well.

It was noted that Baghdasaryan’s visit to Russia and Belarus yielded
results, as the representatives of their defense establishments
arrived in Armenia and familiarized themselves with the situation at
the spot. Overall, the issues related to defense industry development
are in the limelight of RA President, Baghdasaryan said.

The meeting made a decision on drafting and presenting the main
provisions of the Armenian defense establishment development concept
within three months.

TURKISH COMPANIES MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO INVEST IN ARMENIA: ARMEN AYVAZYAN

Tert.am
12.04.10

The Armenia-Turkey normalization initiated by the football diplomacy
has bought about sad consequences, Director of Ararat Centre for
Strategic Research Armen Ayvazyan told journalists at a press
conference today.

In his words Turkey had introduced pre-conditions before signing the
Protocols, which apparently have pre-conditions, one of which is the
creation of the committee of historians.

"In the turmoil of the ‘road map’ and the Protocols the Armenians
have subjected to unjustified concussions," said Ayvazyan, adding
that the Armenian political elite persistently does not want to see
the real roots of the Armenia-Turkey issue, i.e. Turkey is an enemy
country and the colonization and elimination of Armenia is one of
Ankara’s main strategic objectives.

"If we accept that Turkey is an enemy country, then we must not invite
the enemy to participate in the construction of the New Armenian
Nuclear Power Plant – a strategic facility for Armenia – or become
its shareholder, which the government announced last year," said he.

Ayvazyan thinks that we should not let the Turkish companies to invest
in Armenia as the Turks will obtain political leverages by investing
in Armenia’s economy.

Ayvazyan also thinks that Armenia has already made big concessions by
singing the Protocols. Turkey, in his words, will eventually ratify
them, but the point is that Ankara wants to exert maximum concessions
from Yerevan by delaying the ratification.

Belmont Citizen-Herald , MA
April 11 2010

Hovsepian: We still remember April 24, 1915

By Jirair Hovsepian

Belmont, Mass. ‘ This April will be the 95th anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide. Almost a century has gone by with eyewitnesses and
survivors dwindling to a handful.

For thousands of years Armenians lived in Anatolia and Cilicia, now
Turkey, without Turks, creating a unique alphabet, architecture, art,
music, and in 301 AD accepted Christianity as the first nation to
adopt it.

In 1639, the Ottoman Empire occupied Western Armenia. Through the
centuries, they harassed, overtaxed, and committed localized
massacres. Between 1894 and 1896, Sultan Abdul-Hamid organized
massacres killing over 200,000 Armenians. In 1909, the Young Turk
party massacred 35,000 Armenians.

Lord Byron wrote: `¦ an oppressed and noble nation ¦ It would be
difficult perhaps to find the annals of a nation less stained with
crimes than the Armenians, whose virtues have been those of peace, and
their vices those of compulsion.’

In 1915, Talaat Pasha, the Interior Minister, resolved to solve the
`Armenian Question.’ Along with Djemal Pasha, head of the police, and
Enver Pasha, the Minister of War, masterminded the deliberate
annihilation of the Armenian nation.

Beginning April 24, 1915 until 1923, the Ottoman Empire killed
1,500,000 Armenians, men, women and children, two thirds of the
population. There are countless studies written by historians and
genocide scholars regarding this inhumanity to man.

Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire
from 1913 to 1916, reported: "¦Deportation of and excesses against
peaceful Armenians is increasing and from harrowing reports of eye
witnesses [sic] it appears that a campaign of race extermination
[genocide] is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against
rebellion."

Today’s Turkey as the beneficiary of the loss of the Armenians’ lives,
property, lands, and irreplaceable antiquities from millennia, still
denies that their ancestors committed the most horrific crime in human
history.

They spend millions trying to hide the truth by intimidating their
population with Article 301 (insulting Turkishness), the U.S.
government’s security by threatening to close the US airbase in
Incirlik, hiring former U.S. officials as lobbyists to prevent
Congress from officially recognizing fact of The Genocide.

Sen. Obama while campaigning for the presidency promised: `¦ as
President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide." On January 19,
2008, he said `¦ that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a
personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented
fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.’

Unfortunately, he has succumbed to the Turkish tactics and reneged on
his honorable pledge.

On March 4, House Foreign Affairs Committee passed (HR252) officially
recognizing that the 1.5 million Armenian deaths was a genocide.
Immediately, the Turkish Government recalled its ambassador to the
U.S. as a protest.

Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in 1944, coined the
term `genocide’ for the Nuremberg trials, citing as example the
experience of the Armenians in 1915.

Under pressure from Turkey, the Obama administration is being duped
and actively involving itself in ensuring that the resolution is not
brought before the full House, thereby being complicit in denial.

On April 23, 2008, Dr. Gregory Stanton, president of International
Association of Genocide Scholars, said: `¦there is an eighth stage in
every genocide: Denial. It is actually a continuation of the genocide,
¦ Denial harms the victims and their survivors. ¦ Elie Wiesel has
repeatedly called Turkey’s denial a double killing, as it strives to
kill the memory of the event. We believe the U.S. government should
not be party to efforts to kill the memory of a historical fact as
profound and important as the genocide of the Armenians, which Hitler
used as an example in his plan for the Holocaust."

As long as one Armenian lives, the Armenian Genocide will always be
remembered. As long as one honest and honorable man remembers it,
there is hope for preventing future genocides.

Jirair Hovsepian lives on Chandler Street.

w/x1661778935/Hovsepian-We-still-remember-April-24 -1915

Azerbaijan Business Center
April 10 2010

Azerbaijan and Turkey discuss bilateral links

Baku, Fineko/abc.az. Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev received
yesterday deputy foreign minister Firudin Sinirlioglu of Turkey.

Mr. Sinirlioglu conveyed greetings to President Aliyev from his
Turkish counterpart Abdulla Gul and prime minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and the message of Turkish PM.

The Azerbaijani leader told of condition of negotiations on settlement
of Azerbaijan-Armenia Nagorno Garabagh conflict, and the Turkish
deputy minister of the current state of Turkish`Armenian
relationships.

In the meeting the sides also covered issues concerning development
and prospects of Turkish-Azerbaijani ties, friendship and brotherhood.

Aysor, Armenia
April 9 2010

`Straggle and inconveniences are not only between the states’

The FIDH 37th Congress-Forum was followed by the joint declaration of
the Armenian and Turkish delegates, after which they gave their
assessments.

Yavuz Alatas the member of International Federation of Human Rights
(FIDH), who is in Armenia today, expressed his gratitude for the
Armenian hospitability and mentioned that for 25 years he has kept
straggling for defending the human rights in Turkey.

`The Armenian ` Turkish relations are in a difficult condition again,
we want to open the doors which the official sides have closed. We
want to sit with our friends face to face and to put bridges between
the two nations. It is a historical event, but it’s also a work which
has its difficulties as the straggle and the inconveniences are not
only between the states,’ Alatas said.

He stated that during the last period the nationalist movement in
Turkey becomes wider, that is the reason why parallel with the
speeches of the officials the civic word is needed, the speaker said.

`We would like to sit around the table to discuss all the historical
events, especially those concerning 1915. We need a new kind of
psychology, atmosphere, we should be able to overcome the ideas that
are between us,’ the speaker said.

This statement made by Alatas is significant in reality: `It is not
important whether it comprises all our wishes or not, the important is
the fact that this is the first step.’

Commémoration du traité de Sèvres
11 AVRIL

samedi10 avril 2010, par Ara/armenews

Commémoration du 90ème anniversaire du Traité de Sèvres, organisée par
l’Association Nationale des Anciens Combattants et Résistants
Arméniens (ANACRA).
En présence de SEM. Viguen Tchitechian, Ambassadeur d’Arménie en
France, de SEM Norvan Zakarian, Primat du Diocèse Arménien de France,
de Monsieur le Maire de Sèvres, F. Kosciuzko-Morizet et de nombreuses
personnalités.

Lieu : Khatchkar du Musée de la Porcelaine à Sèvres Dimanche 11 avril à 11 h.

Programme : 10 H 45 : mise en place des drapeaux , arrivée des
personnalités : Son Excellence M. Viguen Tchitetchian, les maires des
communes voisines, les délégations assyro-chaldéenes, chypriotes,
kurdes,etc.. 11H : dépôt de gerbes et prière devant le Khatchkar
avec Monseigneur Zakarian Discours dans la salle du Traité du Musée de
la Porcelaine.

Cocktail offert par la ville de Sèvres.

Aysor, Armenia
April 9 2010

RA President S. Sargsyan: `I see no danger of war’

`I don’t see a forthcoming danger of war,’ said Armenian President in
the interview with the journalist in Tavush region. He reminded that
he has stated for many times that the Defense Ministry should always
be ready for any developments and that Ministry is working for the
entire Republic of Armenia and especially Tavush region.

`Our army is ready for defending and if, God forbid, something happens
we will be ready,’ the head of the country said he noticed that the
danger of war has always existed, is and will always be till there is
no peace established in the whole region.

`Simply these dangers turn to be more material for our nation in two
conditions, the first one is that Azerbaijan tries to swagger with a
`militaristic’ behavior, though I do not see any bases for this,
because I don’t see any superiority in their side. The second
condition is in our inner political life, when some forces try to
speculate the circumstances,’ the head of the country said.

He added that today in Armenia there are series of Medias which
translate the Azerbaijani propaganda into Armenian, which are aimed at
spreading terror among the public speaking about the possible
resumption of war. He thinks the statements that compare the Armenian
and Azerbaijani armies absurd.

`I don’t understand the Medias or the reporters who ask which official
will participate in the war if the war resumes,’ he said and added,
`We should realize that it is a question of human type. I am sure that
among the opposition and the neutral people there are some who will
fight in the first rows if the war resumes, and among the authorities
too there are people who will flee away. We have already passed this
way once,’ the head of the country said.

President Sargsyan of Armenia extends condolences on Lech Kaczynski’s death

armradio.am
10.04.2010 18:23

President Serzh Sargsyan today sent a telegram of condolence to the
Marshal of the Polish Sejm Bronislaw Komorowski. The message reads:

`Your Excellency,

I was deeply shocked at today’s plane crash that took the lives of the
President of the Republic of Poland, his wife, high-ranking officials
and deserving sons of the Polish people.

On behalf of the people of the Republic of Armenia and myself I extend
deepest condolences to you, the families of the victims and the Polish
people.

Sharing the sorrow and pain of the people of Poland, I wish strength
of spirit to the relatives and friends of the victims.

Accept, Mr. Komorovski, the assurance of my high esteem.’